NASA: An asteroid will pass “right” by Earth today – Read all the details here

An asteroid is set to come very close to Earth in the next few hours, passing just a few thousand kilometers above the planet’s surface, according to NASA. Images of the asteroid will be broadcast live via robotic telescopes.

What do we know about this asteroid?
The asteroid was first spotted on January 21 and named asteroid ‘2023 BU’. Specifically, NASA stated on the subject: “A small near-Earth asteroid will have a very close encounter with our planet, just over the southern tip of South America.” It is due to pass Earth shortly after midnight on Friday, January 27, 2023.

It is one of the closest asteroid approaches ever recorded, at an estimated distance of just 3,600 kilometers from our planet’s surface. This is less than 3% of the average Earth-Moon distance. It may sound like a long distance, but this asteroid will be the fourth closest to pass by Earth since records began.

A small asteroid is predicted to make one of the closest approaches by a near-Earth object ever recorded on Thursday, Jan. 26. Although it will pass within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites, there is no risk of the asteroid impacting Earth.

Details: https://t.co/UQzjedlQuK pic.twitter.com/yLk5QoFzeu

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) January 26, 2023

Should we be worried about the asteroid crashing into Earth?
In short, no. It is a small asteroid, 3.5 to 8.5 meters in diameter. It is apparently about the size of an elephant. According to NASA, asteroids smaller than 25 meters are likely to burn up, leading to little or no damage to the ground. The asteroid was discovered last Saturday by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov from Crimea, who also discovered the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019. Observations of “2023 BU” by dozens of other observatories around the world followed. The final analysis of its orbit data was done by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

American researchers predicted that the asteroid will pass unusually close to Earth. In fact, because it will be so close, the gravity of our planet will change its course, resulting in the future erasing an oval orbit around the Sun every 425 days, instead of 359 today.

What are asteroids?
They are small bodies of the Solar system, which are in orbit around the Sun. The vast majority of asteroids are concentrated in two Belts: the Main Asteroid Belt and the Kuiper Belt. Asteroids are considered leftovers from the formation of the solar system and are estimated to exist in the millions. In simple terms, we can describe asteroids as huge rocks orbiting the Sun. Their size varies from a few tens of meters to hundreds of kilometers. Smaller bodies in perisolar orbit are called meteoroids. Usually asteroids have an irregular potato-like shape, but larger ones are spherical or elliptical in shape, as the gravity created by their mass on their surface prevails.

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.